Sydney, Jan 17 (IANS): Two men in the northeastern Australian state of Queensland have been hospitalized with rare and potentially deadly mosquito-borne viruses.
An elderly man from the city of Townsville, over 1,000 km northwest of Brisbane, has been admitted to hospital with dengue fever despite being vaccinated against it, marking the region's first breakthrough in five years, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) quoted Queensland health authorities as saying on Friday.
At the same time a middle-aged man from Townsville, who recently traveled to southern Queensland, was in hospital with Japanese Encephalitis Virus (JEV).
It was the first confirmed human case of JEV in Queensland since 2022.
Townsville Public Health Unit Director Steven Donohue told reporters on Friday that both men were in stable condition.
He said that the elderly man was unlucky because local mosquitoes in the Townsville area carry a bacteria that blocks transmission of dengue.
Mosquitoes from the area where he was bitten have been collected for analysis, Xinhua news agency reported.
Both dengue fever and JEV are types of flavivirus that can be fatal in rare cases.
Health authorities in the east coast states of New South Wales and Victoria have issued warnings over JEV in January after detecting it in mosquitoes.
The health authorities in Victoria, Australia's second-most populous state, had at the start of this year issued a high-risk warning after identifying a human case of a deadly mosquito-borne virus.
According to the World Health Organization, one in 250 human infections with JE virus results in severe clinical illness. The virus can cause a rare infection of the brain that can lead to seizures, hearing or vision loss, paralysis or even death.
The Victorian Department of Health alert had said that residents of, and visitors to, communities along the Murray River in the state's north are potentially at higher risk of infection.
It said that children aged five years and younger and the elderly are at higher risk of developing severe illness if they are infected with the JE virus.